FRONTLINE is looking ahead to the fall and to the start of its fifteenth season on PBS. For the first installment of the three educator guides the series will produce, FRONTLINE plans to highlight "The Choice '96," a two-hour election special to air in October on PBS.

Like its predecessors in 1988 and 1992, "The Choice `96" will examine the public careers and private lives of the two major presidential candidates, searching for clues to their character and the patterns of behavior that could predict their handling of the problems confronting the United States.

Through in-depth interviews with those individuals who know the candidates best as well as with journalists, activists, and political opponents who have clashed with the candidates, "The Choice `96" will give voters a chance to look carefully at the qualities and ablilities of the candidates and to grapple with the real choice to be made on November's ballot.

The guides, planned to arrive in mailboxes in mid-September, will offer educators background information and classroom activities about the election process and the evaluation of character and ethics in the 1996 race for the White House.